Search Results for: Global Warming

BY KEITH NUTHALL

AS trade ministers flew home from four days of gruelling talks at last week’s World Trade Organisation (WTO) summit in Hong Kong, they could be forgiven for feeling some satisfaction: the end of the Doha Development Round is nigh, probably.…

BY DEIRDRE MASON

IRELAND’S Celtic Tiger economy may have lost a little of its bounce recently, with double-digit annual growth figures no longer predicted. However, the beast is still in fine fettle, as a recent Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) observer report notes: “The economy has bounced back.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE EUROPEAN Commission has proposed the creation of an official code of conduct for European Union (EU) for simplifying tax returns made by multinationals currently hamstrung by contrasting revenue collection rules.

Brussels wants to help large companies present clear accounts covering activities in a number of countries, taking into account inter-group transfers of assets and funds.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE UNITED Nations General Assembly has voted to create a new remembrance day in November for road traffic victims, who are regularly more numerous than deaths caused by wars or civil strife. Indeed, 1.2 million people are killed annually in road accidents, says the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than the population of Estonia.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE INTERNATIONAL Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) has released a new standard for improving security along companies’ entire supply chains, even if these are global in length. The standard ISO/PAS 28000:2005 includes requirements enabling an organisation to establish, implement, maintain and improve complete security management systems, including, amongst others, financing, manufacturing, information management, packing, storing and transferring goods.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
OIL and gas companies have called on the European Commission to improve long-term certainty within the European Union’s (EU) global warming emissions trading scheme, in a public consultation attracting over 300 responses from energy producers and consumers. A key concern is predictability regarding allocating national emission allowances, whose award has become less reliable since a recent European Court of Justice (ECJ) case, where judges rejected a European Commission order for the UK to adjust its CO2 pollution limits.…

KEITH NUTHALL
GERMANY – which until recently had a Green-Socialist government – is home to five of the 10 dirtiest electricity plants in the European Union (EU), a report from conservation group WWF claims. Its assessment of carbon-dioxide emissions from power stations found Germany’s lignite Frimmersdorf RWE plant second most polluting, behind Greece’s lignite plant at Agios Dimitrios.…

BY MARK ROWE
WEATHER forecasters have always come in for criticism but the reality is that forecasting has evolved somewhat beyond the reliance of medieval truisms such as rain on St Swithun’s Day means 40 more days of showers. Today’s forecasts are more reliable than ever, and meteorologists can provide long-term predictions of wet weather, heat waves and other extreme events.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE LAWRENCE Livermore National Laboratory, California, USA, has warned global warming could be much higher than expected, releasing new models suggesting average temperatures worldwide could rise by 7.8°C by 2300 if fossil fuel consumption continues unchecked. Polar ice caps would melt and sea levels rise seven meters, it claimed.…

BY KEITH NUTHALL
THE WORLD Health Organisation (WHO) has welcomed the spread of programmes tackling violence as a public health priority instead of just a crime problem, with the WHO saying such an approach fosters effective holistic policies. A recent conference, the 2nd Milestones of a Global Campaign for Violence Prevention, in San Francisco, co-hosted by the WHO and the California Wellness Foundation, heard of many new national models.…